by Donald Street Jr.
In my 1966 Cruising Guide to the Lesser Antilles (the guide that opened the Eastern Caribbean to cruising sailors and helped make the bareboat charter industry possible), I noted that the best cruising period of the year is the month of June and the first half of July. It’s been 56 years since I first wrote that and it’s still true.
During early summer in the Caribbean, the wind blows 10 to 12 knots — seldom less and rarely more — except in brief squalls. Years ago only a few cruisers enjoyed cruising during the early weeks of hurricane season. Even today you’ll find uncrowded anchorages.
Careful investigation of hurricane tracks and data from NOAA between 1851 and 2020 shows that in June and the first two weeks of July only two hurricanes have hit the islands of the Eastern Caribbean. With that in mind, charter companies have extended their season well beyond winter, and their clients enjoy some of the best sailing weather of the year.
Charter boats and cruisers based in the Virgin Islands will find anchorage choices opening up as swells from northern storms die down. The west coast of Virgin Gorda, north coast of Tortola, northwest coast of St. Thomas, and north coast of Culebra and Culebrita all have beautiful white sand beaches that are usually untenable in the winter due to the groundswell. However, groundswell season ends approximately mid-April opening these anchorages for a full 10 weeks of wonderful “off season” cruising before it’s time to lay up your boat for the hurricane season. Bareboat companies advertise chartering this time of year and offer reduced rates to sailors savvy enough to charter in the Caribbean in early summer.
Making plans for the hurricane season
While enjoying the great sailing and secluded anchorages of early summer, take time to organize your hurricane season plans. If you plan to lay up ashore, you should have made arrangements with the yard weeks earlier. In choosing the right boatyard for your hurricane season layup, there are a number of questions to ask. How many boats do they haul and store? Are boats stored on cradles or jackstands (if jackstands, how many)? Do they allow boats to be stored with the mast in or are they required to pull the mast? Do they dig keel pits to minimize the chances of deep-draft boats being blown over?
If you are planning to leave your boat in a marina, do some research. Some marinas have received a direct hit from a hurricane and lost few boats, others have not been so lucky. As with yards, ask marinas their capacities, the last time the marina received a direct hit by hurricane, how many boats were lost, and how many suffered major damage. But even then, leaving your boat in a marina in the hurricane belt is at best very risky.
Forget laying up on a hurricane mooring. Even if you’ve done everything right and your boat is surviving the hurricane just fine, the chances of it being hit and destroyed by a boat dragging down on it are very high. That’s how I lost Li’l Iolaire: my 28-foot yawl could not survive being attacked by 55-foot catamaran!
The hurricane is aimed at you: What now?
If you decide to stay aboard during the worst of hurricane season you should religiously monitor reports from the National Hurricane Center. As long as hurricanes and tropical storms stay below 19 degrees N, their tracks can be predicted fairly reliably. Checking the previously mentioned hurricane data, as tropical depressions (less than 33 knots), tropical storms (from 33 to 64 knots), and hurricanes (64 knots and above) track westwards, they rarely change course more than 5 degrees in 24 hours, and most course changes are toward the north. Changes toward the south seldom last more than 24 hours.
If a hurricane is aimed at your anchorage, don’t head to a so-called hurricane hole. They have all proved to be nothing but major disasters when a hurricane hits.
Wind pressure goes up with the square of the velocity; thus, at 60 knots the load on the anchor line is four times the load experienced at 30 knots, at 120 knots it’s 16 times the load experienced at 30 knots. If the load on your anchor line is a thousand pounds in 30 knots of wind, it will be 16,000 pounds at 120 knots. Anchors drag, mooring lines break, and anchor windlasses tear out of decks. And carnage results.
After Hurricane Hugo in 1989, Bill Skol motorsailed his 48 foot gaff-rigged schooner Medena south under shortened sail. He had an easy trip for 48 hours before Hugo hit Fajardo. He returned to find nothing but death and destruction, and his dinghy — which he had to leave behind — undamaged up in a tree. For 30 years I have advised just that tactic; if the hurricane looks like it is going to hit your anchorage, sail south or southwest. At 6 knots, in 24 hours you are 150 miles south of the hurricane, and in 36 hours you’re 225 miles away and well clear of any strong winds.
If a hurricane aims at the island immediately to the south of you, you have a problem: do you sit tight, do you head south, or what? That’s when you contact a professional weather router like Chris Parker (www.mwxc.com) and pay his fee.
When hurricanes hit the islands of the Eastern Caribbean they are usually small in diameter but are frequently very intense. Dominica, for example, has twice been destroyed by a hurricane, yet the southern end of Guadeloupe and northern end of Martinique suffered no significant damage. Once hurricanes go north of 19 N or pass through the islands of the Eastern Caribbean and get into the waters of the Caribbean they frequently increase in size and ferocity and their tracks become extremely difficult to accurately predict.
For more on hurricanes and information on Street publications go to www.street-iolaire.com.
Don Street has sailed the Caribbean for more than 40 years aboard his engineless 48-foot yawl Iolaire. He sailed her to Ireland and back many times. That experience has informed his numerous books and cruising guides.
Andrew Burton, veteran offshore sailor, delivery skipper, and writer (sites.google.com/site/andrewburtonyachtservices) edited this article.
